Council to consider controversial rezoning

Sunday

Sep 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMSep 30, 2012 at 1:00 AM

Andrew Denney

The Columbia City Council will take final votes at its meeting tomorrow night on a controversial rezoning request to allow the construction of a Break Time convenience store at Grindstone Parkway and Rock Quarry Road and a proposed ordinance to ban the possession of fireworks within city limits.

Residents living near the proposed Break Time site have filed a protest petition against the rezoning request. They say they oppose construction of the convenience store because it could attract increased automobile traffic and, citing violent crime at similar stores, make their neighborhood less safe.

On Sept. 6, the Columbia Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-3 to recommend approval of the request, which would rezone the tract from agricultural to planned commercial use.

City planners had recommended denying the request, concurring with concerns about increased traffic and saying that a gas station does not fit in with the city's Metro 2020 planning document. A city staff report says the Metro 2020 calls for a "neighborhood market" at the site, and a gas station does not fit that description.

Commissioners voting in favor of the recommendation said that a gas station would be appropriate for the site because Grindstone Parkway is becoming a denser commercial corridor. Phebe LaMar, an attorney for MFA Oil and a member of the city's Infrastructure Task Force, said although the street has been more suitable for residential uses in the past, the area has changed "dramatically" over the past decade and a Break Time would be a good fit.

"I can't really think of a better place in Columbia to put a business like this," LaMar said.

Jan Pritchard, who has lived on Rock Quarry Road near the proposed site for about 20 years, said although commercial development is packed on Grindstone between Green Meadows and Providence roads, land use on Grindstone east of Green Meadows is mostly residential.

Pritchard said neighbors have agreed that a business with a lower automobile traffic volume, such as a day care or a law office, would be a more appropriate use for the land.

"That's the type of use that's compatible with the neighborhood and doesn't add a lot of additional traffic," Pritchard said.

The council also will vote on a measure to ban the possession of fireworks in the city, a bill supported by the Columbia fire and police departments. The sale, storage or use of fireworks already is illegal in the city, but City Manager Mike Matthes said current ordinances do not go far enough to prevent fireworks in the city.

When residents contact police about fireworks use, Matthes said, there is little officers can do when they arrive at the scene unless fireworks are still being used.

"By the time we'd get there, we'd have no ordinance to enforce," Matthes said.

Columbia Fire Battalion Chief James Weaver said a prohibition on fireworks possession had been removed from city ordinances in the 1950s, likely to avoid prosecuting otherwise "law-abiding citizens" who would buy fireworks outside of city limits and use them there as well.